reserve. The railway opened under the power of a 1948 diesel-electric end-cab two-axle General Electric locomotive, however, with a 1939 two-axle Whitcomb diesel-mechanical locomotive providing backup. Steam locomotives are scheduled to take over from the diesel engines when renovation of a pair of Baldwin outside-frame 0-6-2 tank engines is complete. These steam engines had originally worked at the Honolulu Plantation Company on Oahu prior to World War II. They were purchased for the Kauai Plantation Railway from a company in the Philippines where they had been in service until 2001. The trains run on rails salvaged from a Soo Line Railroad branch in North Dakota. Most of its 31,680 spikes were driven by hand with 11-pound mauls. The Kauai Plantation Railway is gauge, which has no historical precedent in Kauai; most of the previous railways were smaller gauge. The route passes a estate home built in 1935 for Gaylord Wilcox. In more recent times, the Kilohana Plantation, has been devoted to preserving the island's plantation-era heritage and interpreting it for both locals and tourists. The Kauai Plantation Railway is an outgrowth of this activity, which included horse-drawn carriage rides on the estate. The train passes plots leased by farmers who grow a wide variety of crops, from the culturally important taro to pineapple, papaya, rambutan, tropical hardwood trees, tobacco, and coffee, a more recent cash crop in Kauai. The idea is to show the future of Kauai's agricultural industry in its rich historic and cultural context. It is located at , just off Route 50. End of an era Over of mostly gauge track existed in 1915 in Kauai. By 1959, Kauai railroads were replaced by trucks. Today, even the trucks are gone, and the last sugar plantation on Kauai, Gay & Robinson, processed its last crop in October 2009. See also List of heritage railroads in the United States Ahukini Terminal and Railway Company Kauai Railway List of Hawaii railroads References Kauai Transportation in Kauai County, Hawaii National Register of Historic Places in Kauai County, Hawaii 2 ft 6 in gauge railways in Hawaii Defunct Hawaii railroads Tourist attractions in Kauai County, Hawaii Railway locomotives on the National Register of Historic Places Rail transportation on the National Register of Historic Places in Hawaii Transportation museums in Hawaii Railroad museums in the United States